


Still Searching

by roliver4



Series: The Skate Park Chronicles [1]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Budding Love, Foster Care, Orphans, Punk high schoolers, Skater Lexa, little babes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-19
Updated: 2016-01-19
Packaged: 2018-05-15 00:20:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5764549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roliver4/pseuds/roliver4
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>private school outcast Clarke Griffin gets stood up at the skate park where she runs into a group of renegade youth who smell strangely like Doritos</p><p>or something...</p><p>just fluff</p><p>previously called "If Senses Fail Rewrote My Life"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Still Searching

**Author's Note:**

> random prompt from tumblr: "rich kid clarke griffin meets social outcast Lexa at the skatepark that she never meant to go to"
> 
> Was supposed to be a 1-shot but became more
> 
> Written to STILL SEARCHING by Senses Fail
> 
> add me on tumblr and let's chat: ROLIVER901.tumblr.com
> 
> i follow back!

There’s something about skating that makes it all better. I mean, for as much as anything can make dad dying and mom becoming completely obsessed with her work and never being around and basically being the outcast at school better-- skating does a pretty good job.

Ice skating that is.

I mean, I’m still a rich girl from the burbs in spite of it all. That’s why when the hoity-toity holy trinity of elites from Arc Preparatory Academy invited me out to the skate park, I didn’t think twice-- even when that stupid asshole Sterling smiled and whispered something into Miller and Harper’s ears and the blonde laughed as they turned away.

Whatever-- they were all pieces of shit anyway. Rich kids with an inheritance the size of the city’s debt and a drinking problem inherited from their asshole parents who don’t give enough shits to be concerned.

To make matters worse, I should be one of them...

But I don’t care enough.

There’s the difference.

Well, actually, it’s my dad’s fault to be honest. He raised me differently. You see, my dad was a good man-- honest man-- until one small fuck up landed him in a huge mess of problems with the wrong people. It happens in his line of work-- whatever the fuck that was.

But none of that matters now. All that matters is that I showed up at the skate park and no one was there-- well not no one. Actually, there were a ton of people, just no one I knew.

Glancing around the concrete jungle buried within an old warehouse with my brand new inline skates in hand, panic began building as roughed up looking teenage boys threw themselves across metal bars and down into swimming pools without any water.

It was like walking into an Avril Lavigne music video or an episode of JackAss. Swallowing deeply, I turned to walk away when a voice shouted out to me, cutting through the air between me and the rolled up garage door cut into the graffitied wall.

“Where you headed princess?” the boy asked, his bike tires screeching to a halt right next to me. “Leaving before the party even starts?”  His wild mane of brown curly hair is fighting a resistance against his unstrapped helmet, the red plastic offering almost no safety as it appears to be large on his head. His copper eyes flick between my lower lip between my teeth and the skate in my hand, shoestrings still tied in the perfect knot from the box.

Could I be any more obvious that I have no clue what I’m doing?

“I’m not supposed to be here,” I say, only half lying. I mean, I left a note for my mother on the kitchen table saying that I was going out with friends...

God knows that I don’t have those...

But mother doesn’t.

“Woah now Sky Princess,” he laughs, the amber in his eyes meeting mine for the first time as I try to face him head on, taking a deep breath and puffing out my chest. Who the fuck is this punk? “First off, you and those wicked blue eyes aren’t going anywhere until you at least shred down one ramp.” Is he speaking English? “Second off, who the fuck wears this shit?” His laugh echoed from his chest, filling mine with anxiety as his fingers pointed to the blue skates in my hand. Honestly, I knew nothing about rollerblades. Now, ask me about ice skates and I could tell you the world, but rollerblades were reserved or miscreants and ruffians that filled the concrete amazon that was Sixth Avenue Skate Park on the weekends-- not well-to-do private school outcasts with distant mothers and dead fathers like me.

Pushing past the boy, I tried to not touch him while words mumbled from my lips about having something else to do and how I’d be back later, but nothing seemed to work and he had this bizzare control of the handlebars of his bike that allowed him to move in front of me with little effort, blocking me in no matter what direction I tried to pass from. This curly haired jew-fro of a boy who looked like honestly stepped out of a Taco Bell commercial was like Harry Houdini of the bike world and in that moment, I couldn’t escape. Pressure began building in my chest as I attempted to choke down more air to push back the tears in my eyes.

My “friends” had set me up.

I was walking through this terrible chapter of Lord of the Flies meets a fucking MTV sitcom.

And now fucking stoner version of Adam Brody was pushing me back into the world of busted knees and spray painted ply-wood and there was nothing that I could do to stop it.

“Leave me alone!” I shout, my hands finding his shoulders and pushing him away just enough to cause him to lose his balance and fall over, his bike falling with him on top of his left leg.

From behind me I could hear the laughter filling the air as the boy lifted himself from the ground, pulling his handle bars with him. “Damn Sky Princess. I didn’t think you had it in you!”

“Leave her alone Bellamy. You’ve already lost,” another voice finally breaks our meeting and catches my attention. Turning on my heels, I came face-to-face with probably the epitome of Zumiez and Hot Topic’s love child. If black, red, and green could have mixed in any better of a way, then I had never seen it before meeting with those soft, washed out green eyes wrapped tightly in a midnight sky of eyeliner. It was like looking at your favorite sweater that had been washed one too many times against the darkness of the ever expanding universe. It was like looking at everything good and bad in the world all at once.

She was standing with her feet wide, a heavy base holding up her thin frame. Everything in her was balanced on those knees wrapped tightly in a pair of shin guards, protection on an already damaged wound that dripped blood down to her tattered converse. Her shorts screamed out for redemption with patches covering holes from probably the last ten years, eclipsed only by the large, red flannel wrapped around her waist. The black tank top that was stretched tightly across her shoulders offered little protection from the unforgiving ground below, the scrapes lining her arms indication of wars fought with the turf of this area and stories of victories won from the shoulders of sacrifice. Her words rang out like a fucking Mozart piece against the heavy metal anthem of the skate park as she looked past me to the curly haired man who was picking his red helmet from the ground below, ego obviously damaged by the fall. “If the princess can’t take it then we don’t need her here crying on our digs. Check me?”

And she ruined it.

“Fight me,” the words escape my mouth before my tongue can push them back, a glimpse of surprise etching across the woman’s lips. The surprise is mirrored through mine obviously as my fingers tighten into a fist, ready to defend my statement should the skateboard wielding brunette decide to take me up on my accidental challenge.

I had only ever been in one fight before-- well, kind of only in one fight... See there was that girl in kindergarten who called my mother a slut-- but she only kind of counts.

Then there was that time in third grade when that stupid fucking Wells Jaha opened his goddamned mouth and made fun of the way I talked-- but I only hit him once... So I don’t count that one.

And the cheerleader in middle school doesn’t count because she never swung back-- fuck, she never even saw me until after I slammed her head in the gym locker room locker, leaving a small dent in the metal and in my permanent record.

Okay, so I fight a lot, but people suck. So, there’s a reason...

Instead, she laughs, holding out her hand palm up, her elbow slightly bent. “Give them to me,” she says with a small smirk, her fingers retracting twice to wave my skates over. As if like magic, the woman commands my hand to surrender the blue and silver rollerblades over, her fist tightening around the strings quickly as if she’s afraid I’ll change my mind. “You don’t need these. These are shit. Come here Princess.”

Before I know any better, I’m sandwiched in between my own Cassiopeia in the brunette and Cerberus in the boy with the bike, rewriting mythology as we made our way to a set of bleachers infested with similar renegades wielding Mountain Dew bottles and stolen cigarettes.

What is the collective word for mythological creatures?

A blaze of dragons?

Shit, with the amount of eyeliner occurring, the group sitting before me could have honestly passed as a nursery of raccoons, but still, in spite of my internal dialogue and the laughter filling my brain, my fingers trembled as the brunette grabbed my wrist, pulling me closer into the group. “This is the princess and she needs some skates,” the girl commands before a smaller brunette reaches behind her, pulling a set of slightly smaller rollerblades off of the bleacher above hers. “Thanks Octavia,” she laughs, taking the skates and handing them to me. “Princess, lace up. Challenge accepted.”

And that’s when the anxiety began to build. I mean, it’s not like I haven’t been a flaming ball of angst since I arrived at the skate park, but now I had found myself in the middle of a group of Green Day singing, bumper sticker collecting, high school miscreants and I have no clue how to even “lace up” a pair of roller blades. I mean, again, ice skates-- yes... but this... nooooo...

“What’s wrong sky princess?” the boy known as Bellamy asked, poking my shoulder from behind. “Afraid?”

Swallowing deeply, I lowered my body to the ground, lacing the skates the only way that I knew how, tightening the knot and tucking the strings into the boots before standing, looking the woman in the eyes once quickly before turning to Bellamy. “Not scared, asshole,” I nodded, swallowing back my fear. My ploy was honestly working as he shuffled back slightly, distancing himself from me. “And the name’s Clarke, got it?” I probably sounded more like something out of a John Wayne movie than I did a Simple Plan music video... or maybe Woody from Toy Story. It was dumb-- honestly, this whole act was dumb, but I was in too deep now.

Glancing me once over again, the woman snorted a small laugh before stepping past me, tossing her board to the ground and meeting it halfway with her foot. She pushed it the rest of the way, the stepped down, gliding gently across the concrete as she turned to look back at me, ushering me forward. The small group behind me all laughed gently, whispering to each other as they cheered us on. In the midst of whoops and hollers from the small crew of defectors, I heard a couple of voices shouting phrases like “Get it, Princess” as I cautiously walked over to the edge of a concrete ramp, stumbling over my feet like a baby giraffe as “The Commander” as they called her laughed, her small smile spreading through my like a plague.

Fuck...

How gay could I possibly be?

“You’re up Princess Clarke,” she says, her smile continuing as her hand found my back.

Swallowing deeply, I glance down into the drained pool, angst and anxiety bubbling up into my chest. That was not the same as ice skating... not at all. “I can’t do this,” I mumble to her, turning my head slightly to catch her smile fall from my peripherial.

“Well, not with your skates tied like that,” the brunette smiled, kneeling down beside me and grabbing my legs, one ankle at a time as she re-laced the boots, tightening them more securely around my shins before standing to look me directly in the eye. “Go in straight, don’t try to turn. Step if you want to change directions and don’t drag your feet. Don’t stop, just hit the wall and turn back to wave. You’ll look like a pro.” Her hard, stone exterior melted away in that moment when I realized that she knew exactly how unnatural this was to me. “You’ve got this, Clarke.” Suddenly, the sullen and aggressive Commander smiled at me with new eyes-- eyes glowing an emerald green, glistening in the light as it flicked across her cheeks through the windows in front of us.

I shuttered a small breath of air through my gritted teeth as I took another step closer to the edge. “And if I fall?” I asked her, glancing over the side again as if anything would have changed. It remained same. Everything was the same.

Except for her.

“Then get back up,” she laughed once before her hand found my back once more. “Ready?” She asked. When I nodded, the slight push from her hand was all that it took and I was off.

Honestly, I couldn’t tell you what happened. I want to. I want to remember. I want to know why the others were cheering when I opening my eyes. I want to know how quickly the Commander rushed over to me. I want to know what part of the giant swimming pool I hit my head on and how she looked as she cascaded down the sides to find me and whether or not she slid to her knees from a distance or stopped herself immediately at my side. I want to know if she hesitated, waiting for me to get back up or if she panicked the moment I hit the ground.

But I don’t.

All I remember is opening my eyes to see the steel rafters of the skate park’s metal ceiling, the rusty brown contrasting against her smoky green eyes as she whispered my name. “Clarke, you alright princess?” Her hands brushed my arms, sending tidal waves through my insides. She was the moon and I was the Earth and I couldn’t help to reach out to her-- even when everything inside of me held me in place.

“What happened?” I asked, my voice sounding foreign to even myself.

“Dude, you ate it!” the smaller girl-- Octavia-- laughed, reaching out a hand and grabbing one of my arms while a larger man did the same with the other, the two of them lifting me to my feet next to the commander. “Lexa, how hard did you push her?”

The brunette froze momentarily before shrugging them off, wrapping her hand in mine and ushering me to the side, lifting herself from the pool gracefully before offering me a hand to do the same. My climb was not as graceful-- just another reminder that I was not a skater...

But hey, I got her name.

Lexa.

So that was a win...

“Do you have a mom we can call or something?” Lexa asks, handing me a water bottle as we reach the bleachers, my head swimming like the contents of the clear Dasani bottle. “Or are you an orphan like the rest of us?” The small snort of laughter catches me by surprise as does the heavy feeling in my legs once my ass reaches the metal of the bleacher. Jesus, how hard did I hit?!

“Orphan, really?” I ask, raising the bottle to my head. It’s not cold, but it feels like it should be and maybe I’m relying on placebo affect here, but it seems to be helping the pain.... or maybe that’s just Lexa’s smile...

“Well, Lincoln’s got a mom, but Indra’s a tit sack so we don’t talk much of her.” Her finger raised to the larger boy who helped Octavia lift me from the concrete below. His fitted white t-shirt honestly left little to the imagination as his neck tattoos peaked over from the top, joining with his slight beard forming from an unshaven face. “Not like it would matter because he’s 20. So whatever.  Bellamy and Octavia lost their mom a few years back, but Bell’s phased out. O’s still in foster care, but her parents are deadbeats. They don’t care as long as they get their check.” The gasp that flooded from my lips must have slipped past her notice as Lexa continued, pointing to another of their group who stood with Bellamy at the corner of the pool, arms dangling over his handlebars while he yelled into the tank at Lincoln who continued on his path before jumping out, pulling his skateboard with him in one fell swoop. “Murphy lives with his uncle, but he’s not here nor there. He just doesn’t care about much as long as Murphy is home for dinner every night.” They really were amazing. “And me, I’m technically a run-away, but they’ll never report me.”

A second went by before I comprehended entirely what Lexa had said. “A run-away?” I asked, turning my attention to the girl. “You mean, you don’t have a home?”

Maybe it was because I had grown up in the ritzy, fancy end of town with multi-million dollar houses or because my mother was a neuro-surgeon or even because I was in the most elite private school in the region, but something about me made it impossible to imagine not going home to a mother... to a house... hell, to a bed.

“Nah,” Lexa laughs, turning her head away from mine. “I’ve got that. I mean, look at these assholes. This is home.”

Turning back to the group, I watched as Lincoln moved in to kiss Octavia, his lips meeting hers just as Bellamy’s helmet left his hand, colliding with the larger man’s thigh. Lincoln laughed, releasing the small girl before he closed the distance between him and the curly haired man. Bellamy tried to ride away, but he reacted too slow and Lincoln pulled his bike out from under him, forcing Bellamy to the ground and erupting the rest of the group into laughter.

“You know,” Lexa begins again and I can feel her eyes on me as I continue to watch the others. “If you need a home, we’ve always got room for one more.”

Smiling gently, I refused to turn back to face her, not quite ready to accept the way that she was looking at me.

“Maybe,” I replied with a small laugh, giggling as Octavia slaps Murphy across the face for something that he said, the others laughing as the boy rubs his chin. “Maybe.”


End file.
